Treatment

My music magazine will be about Rap music genre. The sub-genre is going to be 'Gangsta Rap' and I will include information about 'Gangsta Rap' artists in my magazine, such as Eminem, 2Pac, Wiz Khalifa, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, 50 cent and others. It will include interviews with famous Rap artists, which will be focused on personal life of the artists apart from being on stage. Their families, love, friends and any other interesting events which are happening in their lives. The second main feature of my magazine will be life stories of the artists containing information about things that influenced them to start to sing. As always, rap artists start to write songs based on the life conditions in which they live. Some of them are inspired by street life,some of them are experienced bad things through their life such as death of their families, beating, homelessness. Texts of the Rap artists' songs clearly reflect their life, feelings and thoughts.

The cover of a magazine will consist of close-up shot of a Rap artist. I suppose that the Rap artist on main cover is going to be dark-skinned, as stereotypically most of the Rap artists are black, have many tattoos, piercing and wearing different chains and other special elements of clothes. I will try to make my model look like a real Rap artist by using generic conventions of this music genre.

 Red and black colors are very popular with redactors of Rap magazine and the color scheme for my music magazine will consist of red and black colors. I am going to add white color because black, red and white go well with each other and it will make a front cover more balanced and interesting. 

Textual analysis 1

Textual analysis of music magazine 1

Mixmag magazine
I am going to make an analysis of a music magazine called Mixmag and this particular issue is from November 2014. I have chosen this magazine as it is a very popular and demanding mainstream music magazine containing various information  and knowledge. Like every other issue of Mixmag the masthead does not change. It is in the same position, however, in each issue there is a color change. The change is designed to match the theme and colors in particular magazine. In this issue editors have decided to use a bright red color which is balanced with other textual inscriptions on the front cover of the magazine. The selling line in the skyline 'The worlds biggest dance and clubbing magazine' helps to sell the magazine. Even though main image is portrayed on the left side of the page it is seen as the most important because of its size.
The main audience of this magazine are teenagers and adults, mainly people who are interested
 in Rap and Hip-Hop music. Teenagers in age 12-18 appear to be interested in Hip-Hop music more than anyone else probably because this music symbolizes coolness and modernity and what teenagers are interested in. Quite often this kind of music contains bad language and that is the first reason why little children are not big fans of this genre. Sometimes the texts of Rap songs describe things such as smoking, taking drugs, sex and those are mainstream topics in teenager society which don't relate to young children at any way. Older people find those topics quite familiar to them and on some occasions they are interested in Rap music as well although teenagers remains the focus group for this genre. Older people after 18 are more likely to start creating families and Rap artists which are singing about life full of drugs and sex are not interesting for them any more.
The main character of this particular issue of the magazine is famous Rap singer which is portrayed in the middle of the page. The close-up of his face occupies the greatest part of the page which makes audience focus on the expression of his face first of all. This magazine contains information about this particular artist, interviews and reviews and the portraying  the close-up shot of the artist makes audience understand what the magazine is going to be about. It can be seen from the cover page that the genre of this magazine is Rap because of the generic conventions which support that genre. As i previously said, things such as tattoos, jewelry, pricing etc. refers to Rap/Hip-Hop genre, and very often Rap and Hip-Hop artists are dark-skinned. This Rap artist on the covering is dark-skinned, which follows the stereotype of Rap artists. Other generic conventions such as jewelry on this artist also refers to the fact that this is a Rap genre music magazine. The eye expression represents the artist as a serious and business person who probably have some problems in his personal life. Stereotypically Rap artists are represented as cool, stylish, problematic, dangerous characters. The image of this artist is made in order to support this idea. His eye view brings tension and deep emotions to the audience and it makes them think more about the problems this artist is experienced and be interested in the nature of this artist. The look of the artist is designed in the way that teenagers would like to see Rap artist: cool hairstyle, street style of clothes, and other style details. Teenagers who are mostly interested in Rap genre music use Rap artists as icons and they are trying to look like them.
Mixmag magazine is published and distributed by 'Development Hell'. This company is independent and focus only on Mixmag. This company is based in Inslington, London . The board of Development Hell is chaired by Peter Strong and comprises Managing Director Jerry Perkins, Editorial Director David Hepworth and Finance Director David Joseph.

The font of the content page is black in contrast with main covering's font which is white. Headings are whet and are placed at the right and left sides of the pages. Most of the page is engaged with pictures of different artists. On the the left there is a picture of a girl in a club which connotes that this is music and clubbing magazine. In the left side of this picture there is a heading saying "the world's best club photos and listings" on page 116 and that helps to find information they want to read about most of all. Editor uses not bright colors throughout the whole page to create a specific atmosphere and to make a black font go well with the photos. On the right page there are 3 pictures which showing different artists and things. The color scheme is the same as at the other page and it does not contain any bright colors.

Genre analysis

I am going to research into different genres of music magazine what will give me inspiration to choose what genre I would like to use for my coursework. I will consider their target audiences and colour schemes used throughout the genres, this will help me in creating and editing my own one.

Rock genre
Rock magazines use dark and gloomy colours as it relates to the hard heavy rock music. For Rock magazines there is quite a large range of target audiences as it is not  just aimed at teenagers but also middle aged people as well. Most rock magazines are very busy on the front covers with coverlines and images and large titles.
The music magazine “Rock Sound” I categorized as a “Heavy Rock” magazine. The masthead contains the genre that this magazine is categorized in. The lighting of the magazine cover is very dark which signifies that the artist wants to stay hidden as though trying to conceal his identity.The editor did it because he wants artist to remain hidden as society is against people of a punk nature because of such modern civilisation which demands perfection, and it is also a powerful force which separates some people from the others, especially based on those who are academic and non-academic. The artist do not want to get noticed as an outsider who rebels against ”political correctness” and laws. The colour black is known to be very negative and signifies evil based on religion , therefore, the fact that the artist has a brightly portrayed face represents him as though a person who is standing out from darkness, rebelling against a moulded society; his back is toward the darkness as though all negativity is past him, in contrast to the white face which is in front of him and leading him to a more positive and happier future. The artist is represented as someone of a mysterious identity, possibly due to unfortunate childhood experiences, hence why there is such a rebellious approach to music which releases compressed anger and emotions. Even though he is rebellious and was in darkness , the bright Heaven-like colour on his face signifies his close relationship with a Godly figure and religion, therefore, respects religion more than the demands of society, as religion has helped him get through the worst of times.Tattoos on the artist’s arm are presented as he has been scared in his lifetime, just like tattoos  scar the body,  he wants to present his tattoos and be open about his life experiences,  he clearly wants to present his feelings about his life in the form of Heavy Rock music. The camera shot of “Rock Sound” is a close-up shot because, these genre of music is all about demonstrating your feeling through the projection of vocal lyrics. The magazines have deliberately used this type of shot so that the audience can visualise the facial expressions of the artists to understand how they truly feel. There is red writing on the screen which links to the obvious colour of blood and the international colour of danger, therefore, the audience can understand that a punk lifestyle is a dangerous one and that the artist bases most of his music on fear and danger. There is hand-writing found on the front page rather than computerized text. This signifies that the message written by the artist is personal in contrast to generic and universal, computer formatted text. Computerized text is used by many people in modern society and the artist is using writing in his own style rather than following society’s traits and actions as though rebelling against doing all things that others do without any individuality.


Hip-Hop/Rap genre

Hip-Hop is a subculture that originated from the fusion of African American and Latino American communities during the 1970s, in New York City, specifically within the Bronx. While the term is often used to refer to hip-hop music, in its broader sense hip-hop culture is characterized by the four elements of rapping, DJ’ing, breaking and graffiti. Hip-hop magazines' editors use quite dark colours and red colour which connotes power and authority. Their target audience is teenagers aged form 16-20, because this is the type of music that teenagers like to listen to in this generation. Hip-hop magazines usually uses a large main image of a Hip-hop artist that slightly covers the masthead and stands out to the readers. Generic conventions of Hip-Hop magazine are: guns, chains, jewellery, money, fashion designer clothes, cigars and others. Artists are mainly black and also mainly american, but other races and countries apply, for example Eminem. Sometimes females appear on the front covers, but mostly men.The editors usually use close-up or low angle shot on the front cover to show that artists are big, powerful and strong. Each rapper who appears on the front cover will be shown with his star image and personal identity but also shown in a way that looks like all other rappers. Editors also use special terminology on the front covers such as "swag" , "yo" and others.

Rationale

I have chosen Print brief for my media coursework because I feel I can do better print than any other options. I have completed my preliminary task quite successful and I found doing it very enjoyable.I made a front cover of a school magazine and got some experience in editing texts and pictures which definitely will help me in creating my product.

 I learnt some things about my chosen brief in the past and I will expand my knowledge through out doing research and planning tasks. Research and planning is a very important part of the pre-production process as it builds better understanding of the brief by analysing other media texts, genre,current market, doing research on the main target audience and institutions. 

I do not have any particular ideas for my work yet, but I would have some once I will have completed my research on my chosen brief and understand better the genre which I am going to work with.